Happy Season of Compulsory Joy

It's that time of year again, when we sing about peace and good will,when our impulse is to give, share and support others, feelings of solidarity and mutual aid, find their form in the midwinter festival that in this part of the world, is now known as Christmas.
Today, as the tentacles of the capitalist market reach into every part of our lives, those feelings are commodified, we are encouraged to pay for the convenience of expressing our feelings for our fellow beings through gift giving. We fret about our purchases, are they good enough? Will the person like them?
But, as well as this, people across the world think of those who have less and donate food, clothes, toys and money.
It is worth remembering that these acts of solidarity are part of our nature, that the impulse towards mutual aid is not just a once in a year anomoly, that it was a deciding factor in our evolution and is something we need to nurture if the human race is to survive the coming centuries.
As Kropotkin wrote in Mutual Aid, a factor of evolution.
I will be quiet for next few days, as library closing until the new year, a  little post, on boxing day, perhaps, and then quite probably not  until the new year, so in the meantime...thanks to all who've supported the blog....
Best wishes.
solidarity
Another world is not impossible, it is inevitable,
heddwch/peace.

Oh and Father Christmas says Free Palestine

Metamorphosis ( a poem for the Winter Solstice)

                                 Christian Schole

' Throw your dreams,
into space like a kite,
and you do not know ,
what it will bring back,
a new life,
a new friend,
a new love,
a new country'
- Anais Nin

Sunrise at Newgrange

Sunset at Stonehenge,
and  the veil is drawn 
gliding under  shifting skies,

following  earths trembling hum

the thunder of life's mutation
imagination awakens,, loses wings

impatient and a little crazy
lets words escape, beyond control,
into spaces unafraid of weight.

The dance of transformation
hooks and catches, follows whirling path,
flowing in winds sowing filter
navigates uncharted space,
without borders restrictive figuration
turns nothing into edges everlasting pulse,

remember loved ones, those gone far to soon.

do not forget to engage, deeply with your own soul

And in the blessed  morning

as time comes round again,

opens up its brilliant rays
reconstructs our roots,
supplements our need
releases again the delicate
                  seeds of dream,
slipping chrysalis's of survival
deep into futures hungry realm,

on the shortest day of the year

 toast the sun king's return.

Happy Winter Solstice
heddwch/peace

Gaza in Crisis: Please Help

 

As I type, over 5,000 people have been evacuated from flood-damagesd homes in northen Gaza, in what today the United Nations is calling a 'disaster area.'
Large swathes of Gaza are now delugeed under water, as far as the eyes can see, Under occupation, the severe weather conditions have left its Palestinian citizens almost paralyzed. Their will is strong, but the people still need  our support  Because of the illegal occupaton by Israel, their basic infrastructure, has been seriously effected for years,  that have curbed it's citizens  to basic goods, fuel and building supplies.
After one of the longest blockades in human history, the people of Gaza, desperately need our help. Take a moment and reflect, following floods and freezing temperatures, the situation in Gaza is now catasthropic.
Please join me in calling for David Cameron to end this unsupportable and immoral blockade of 
Gaza. Israels's blockade on Gaza must be ended permanently, thus ending the uneecessary  of it's people.
As UNWRA state:-

" Any normal community would struggle to recover from this disaster. But a community that has been subjected to one of the longest  blockades in human history, whose public health system has been destroyed and where the risk of disease was already rife, must be freed from these man made constraints to deal with the impact of a natural calamity such as this. And of course it the most vulnerable, the women and children, the elderly who will
pay the highest   price  of failure to end the blockade."

http://act.palestinecampaign.org/petition/17

 

Happy Birthday Chelsea Manning- Free her Now!

 

Supporters of international whistleblower Chelsea (formerly) Bradley Manning, have been gathering in London to celebrate her 26th birthday and to demand her immediate release. The U.S soldier  was sentenced to 35 years for leaking thousands of documents to Wikileaks exposing US and other governments' war crimes and corruption.International protests are also being held to demand her release.
Thank's to Chelsea's whistleblowing the public now know  about the collateral murder of a U.S helicopter killing innocent Iraqi civilians, the covers up of rape in Iraq and Afghanistan, the extent of drone strikes, U.S dirty tricks across the globe, the thousand of civilian casualties that were not acknowledged publicly, the fact that most Guatanamo detainees were innocent, their spying on us all, etc etc..
People are invited to support a petiton by Amnesty International demanding her immediate release https://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/chelseamanning  and another petition by the Private Manning Support Network demanding President Obama's pardon http://www.privatemanning.org/pardonpetition Her sentence  is harsher than that of convicted murderers, and rapists, because she wanted to speak some truth, and now  the U.S want to make a scapegoat of her, to discourage other whistleblowers, of taking the brave descion yo expose crimes, and surveillance of us all. It is urgent  that we increase the pressure in our calls for her immediate release. Sharing the truth should not be a crime.
On her fourth birthday behind bars, I do hope the world remembers her, because her brave actions have set an example to us all.

' There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.' 

-Howard Zinn

Happy Birthday Chelsea Manning

Free  Her now



Meanwhile.a date for the diary, an event of solidarity, in the place where Chelsea was raised, who also has Irish roots as well, where these two communities will not forget Chelsea Mannings's courage and integrity.

 

 

Emma Goldman (27/6/1869 -14/5/40) - If I can't dance, it's not my revolution! (the real quote)

'Emma Goldman  was deemed controversial in her own lifetime, with Teddy Rossevelt calling her a "madwoman.. mental.... as well as a moral pervert." In her life she was certainly not one who bowed down to convention or compromise. Her ideas were all about the right to stay alive in ones senses, to live in a world that celebrated this. She certainly lived her life with a fierce intensity, with her unthwarted desire for freedom and all it's possibilities. Her creed was one of individualism and essentially libertarianism and spent her life consumed by its spirit of revolt. A Russian Jewish immigrant at the age of 17, she moved by her own efforts from seamstress in a clothing factory to become an internationally known radical lecturer, writer and friend of the oppressed. She was many things I guess, a feminist, a writer of vision, incredible public speaker but was first and foremost an anarchist. Her writing and ideas covered a variety of issues, including athiesm, freedom of speech, capitalism, free love and women's suffrage. From the 1890s and for years thereafter, America reverberated with the sound of her name.

 She was jailed for inciting riots, advocating birth control, and is their at nearly every turn point in America's 20th Century history.Some have argued that it was her passion that was her undoin, her unwavering commitment to her ideals..... but it was because she loved the world and had so much thirst for it that she gave back 100 percent. Oh there a Welsh connection too, because in June 1925 she married a coal miner from Carmarthenshire named James Cotton in order to obtain British citizenship, In Wales too, she found people who shared her vision and her calls for social justice. Many years after her death she remains an iconic figure to many. Her most fundamental message was the paradoxical command to be yourself and be your own commander-in-chief. The possibilities and expectations of her words still commanding hope.

If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution'.

The above quote was widely attributed to Emma Goldman, but was the invention of anarchist printer Jack Frager for a small batch of Goldman T.shirts he printed in 1973. However in her memoirs,from the early 1950;s. 'Living My Life Goldman remembers being censured for dancing and states:-

"At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he was about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the cause.
I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant, that I did not want it.
'I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things.' Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world - prisons, persecutions, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal."

Emma Goldman 1911, from p56 of her autobiography,
Living My life

 The story has since been passed around and condensed in the folk process as simply the slogan 'If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution'. And although, one the one hand, a fake quote, it''s since had  a lot of positive results–it’s been a rallying cry for feminists, a rallying cry for anarchists, an inspiration to many. me included, and I don't feel undermines Emma Goldman's rich legacy or her charisma, and actually makes more people aware of  her actions and deeds.

Remembered as a  passionate political activist.writer and thinker during the beginning of the 20th century and  known for her free-thinking and rebellious anarchist and communist beliefs. Her writings include discussions on free love, marriage, free speech, atheism, prisons, homosexuality, and capitalism, among other topics.

Goldman continues to command respect for her outstanding contribution to the history of radical working class struggle. As she once declared, “Everyone is an anarchist who loves liberty and hates oppression;” amen to that.

 

Earlier post here

ANARCHISM: WHAT IT REALLY STANDS FOR:-

http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/emma-goldman-2761869-14540-anarchism.html

Lucia Sanchez Saornil (13/12/1895 - 2/6/70) - The Song of Mujeres Libres

Lucia Sanchez Saornil  was a Spanish poet, painter, anarchist and feminist icon. Her early highly erotic paens to female beauty, were written under the male pseudonym of Luciano de San-Saor, at a time when  homosexuality was criminalised . She fought against the fascists  in  the Spanish Civil War. She is know best remembered  for being one of the founders of Mujeres Libres, a group of working class politically active women who struggled against patriarchy. They tried to create an autonomous female community to empower women to realize their individual potential within the larger anarcho-syndicalist movement.
She was also a leading light   in the avant garde literary movent of this era.
She was also active in the CNT in Madrid ( The National Confederation of Labour).
Though openly lesbian,  after the failure of the Spanish Revolution, she spent her later life in a rather clandenstine existence, exiling herself to France,but would return secretly to Spain on occasions, to Madrid and to Valencia.
She died of cancer in Valencia in 1970.

The Song of Mujeres Libres

Fists upraised. women of Iberia
towards horizons filled with light
paths afire
feet on the ground
face to the blue sky.
Affirming the promises of life
we defy tradition
Let us mold the warm clay
pf a new world born of suffering.
Let the past crumble into oblivion!
What is yesterday worth to us!
We want to write anew
the word WOMAN
Fists upraised, women of the world
towards horizons filled with light
on paths afire
onward, onward
toward the light.

Ambrosio Vilhalva ( 1960 - 2013) Lies, Theft and Murder, the sickness of civilization

'While I'm still alive, I'm not going to to shy away from anyone, I'm going to demand action.'

' This is what I most hope for: land and justice... we will live  on our ancestral land, we will not give up.'

- Ambrosio Vilhalva

Guarani leader and film star Ambrosio Vilhalva was found dead  in his hut on December the first, at the entrance to his community, known as Guyra Roka, in Brazils Gross o Do Sul State,he was reportedly stabbed multiple times. For years he campaigned for his tribes right to live on their ancestral land, travelling  extensively internationally to speak about his tribe's plight, and to the Brazilian government to live up to its legal obligations and protecting Guarani land.He fought hard afainst the suger growers in the region, and consequently had had a number of death threats, because he was seen as one of the main leaders of the Guarani peoples  campaigns. According to the Brazil-based indigeneous rights group CIMI, 319 Guarani-Kaiowa Indians were slain from 2003 -2012. More than half of all 558 Indians killed in the entire country during the same period, mostly killed in disputes over land with farmers and ranchers encroaching on their land . Lies, theft and murder,continue sadly to be  part of  the sickness of civilisation that the world's  media ignores. Another senseless death, please help carry forward Ambrosio's struggle and message.

http://www.survivalinternational.org/emails/guarani-stopmurders

Ambrosio Vilhalva  1960 -2013

(following clip includes scenes from the film 'Birdwatchers' by Marco Bachis)

Taking 'Selfies' at Mandela's memorial service simply beyond contempt.

South African President  Jacob Zuma had called  on people to celebrate the life of Mr Mandela, who died last week aged 95, but I am sure a selfie with beaming smiles was not appropriate  behaviour for world leaders on such an occasion.
Their supposed to be acting  in accordance with their status, but here we get their true, worth, much worse than a bunch of giggling teenagers, because in youth one does not always understand the rules of engagement.
Snapping selfies at such a solemn occasion is the ultimate sign of disrespect, it more than sums  up what kind of people they really are. Behaviour that is simply beyond contempt. It is now official they have no class or shame.
A Pictures speaks louder than a thousand words.

Steve Bell Cartoon in yesterday's Guardian 

65 years after Universal Declaration of Human Rights, why so many still not free.

Whilst President Obama and our world leaders, attend Nelson Mandela's memorial service, speaking  and praising Mandela as one of the last great liberators of the 20th Century, urging the world to carry on  his legacy in fighting inequality, poverty and discrimination. Let us today remember that today the world observes the 65th International Human Rights Day, commemorating the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by the United Nations General Assembly.

" All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards another in a spirit of brotherhoood."


I concur  , but today also marks the 12th  year British national Shaker Aamer will have spent in a prison cell without being told why. He is still  not free, and he is far from alone. From Aamer's fellow detainess at Guantanamo,  free expression activists across the globe , in Russian , the U.S.A, China, Iran, Israel, etc etc,  all arbitrally detained prisoners need the advocacy of global citizens  dedicated to impartial justice and universal rights.
The history of injustice  has many parallels in  the United States,  take a look at the case of Leonard Peltier, an American Indian activist who has been in prison for 36 years, wrongfully convicted say many. His case full of holes and irregularities, part of Americas enduring  history  of colonialism of the Native communities in the United States. Evidence of his innocence  has continued to mount, leading organisations such as Amnesty International, as well as notable individuals such as Nobel peace prize winner Desmond Tutu, continue to declare him a political prisoner and call for his release.http://www.leonardpeltier.net/

Leonard Peltier

Poverty, exclusion, and deprivation still spread in equal measures across the globe, the dream of human rights for all unfortunately still more of a dream than an actual reality. The press is still not free in many countries, and dissenters are silenced, too often permanently. People face  unfair trials in at least 54 countries, and freedom of restriction is still restricted  in at least 77 , as well as the use of torture and abuse in at least 81. There are still millions of people in slavery, more than 1 billion without access to clean water.
Then we have Israel, whose persistent human rights violations would not be possible without the complicity  or support of the international community. Because of Israel's systematic discrimination, occupation and colonization, the Palestinian people have faced increased  violations to their right of life, their right to housing and property, their right not to be subjected to torture  to torture, their right to return.
It seems we still have a long long way to go in terms of global human rights, but we should not give up, we should keep on pushing our own individual governments, if we are strong enough to achieve this, encouraging others to do the same. We should not give up, all  our history  is based on change, as a result of people  having pushed hard enough for it.
Without human rights  for all, there can be no justice, without justice there can be no peace. The assertion that "another world is possible," is now an absolute necessity.

Denis Goldberg on Israeli Apartheid

Denis Goldberg is a South African social campaigner. Golberg was a technical officer in the armed wing of the African National Congress, Umkhonto we Sizwe and was sentenced in 1964 at the end of the famous Rivonia Trial to four tems of imprisonment.
Goldberg draws parallels between apartheid South Africa and Israel and highlights the importance of Boycott, Divestment and Sanction.
The struggle continues.
Free Palestine.

' The histories of our two peoples, Palestinian and South Africa correspond in such a painful and poignant ways, that I intensley feel myself being at home among compatriots.'

- Nelson Mandela (October 1996)